Living Hazzardously

Little pieces of our journey with Jesus

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The Lone Traveler, moving on?

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Today was a cool 48 degrees as we called out “Ready to go?” He walked out with nothing in hand, looking like a stuffed winter coat and new shoes. “Just a minute, I am almost ready” he replied as I made room for his personal belongings in the back of the car. “Ok, I will go get your meds packed up, Thanks for being ready to go, I have to make a Dr appointment in rapids by 8:30 this morning.”

A few minutes later I had all his meds packaged up, the black bag was full but not overflowing. “Can I grab a quick smoke before we head out?” I simply replied “sure, we are still ahead of schedule a bit”. He casually walked back after a few pulls on his hand rolled cigarette. “Ok, you got everything? Do you need help carrying anything?” confidently he replied “NOPE, I have everything I want!”  Knowing this man, I knew not to ask too many questions, he gets a bit frustrated with questions and leading conversation…. “OK, Let’s roll!”

The 1 hour trip was calm, a bit of chatter but nothing too deep, I asked what his plan was. He told me he has a plan and he would rather not talk about it, so I left it alone. I asked one more question as we drove down the scenic hwy 38… Do you need anything? 

This man came to us as a mess, medical bills, legal issues, no plan, no ID…. It was about 6 months ago, we helped him get things figured out, I drove him to the court house to get his legal matters fixed, that was a two hour drive one way, I got to know this man and he was a pretty decent fellow, his life story was so much like my own, troubled youth in the cities, stayed out of the big stuff, kept his head down usually… but he had some pretty significant troubles, I recognized the look, the despair and frustration. But in the end, he is a man, made in the image of God, redeemable by the blood of Jesus and infinitely valuable. 

Jess did the most work on getting his life straightened out, countless phone calls to the county, the SS office, State offices, Mountains of paper work, and finally it was all good to go… now he was moving out… He is moving on? “Where can I drop you off?” the quiet voice replied “Just drop me at walmart, I will get around from there!” and in no time, I was pulling into Walmart parking lot “I want you to know something, Jess and I have been praying for you from the first day you moved in, and we will continue to pray for you as long as we are able, Have a good one” and with a quick thank you, he stepped out, closed the  door and crossed over behind the car. I pulled away, we both started to cry, of coarse Jess had big sad, wet eyes and I sucked it up so I wouldn’t crash the car.

Jess and I hadn’t even gotten to the end of the parking lot… “I can’t believe that! All he wanted was his meds? No clothes? No personal effects of any type?” back at Sam’s Place he had neatly washed, folded and put everything away in his room, but he only brought what was on his back. I was reminded of what Job said in his deepest despair “Naked I came into this world, and naked I will go out of this world” This man left us the exact same way he came to us, WITH NOTHING!

Rumor has it he was headed to a homeless shelter in St Paul somewhere, he travels light and fast, wanting only to be left alone, ignored and helped only when he asks for it… The lone traveler. 

Jess asked me “Why? Why would a man choose to be homeless? On the streets? With absolutely nothing?” I can’t answer that question, but I can tell you how he got there…. Pain!

As I close this emotional blog post, I ask you, my christian brothers and sister, pray for this man and all the men that have felt pain so deep and so often, they only trust this pain, the one thing they have learned is abundant and always available.  Ask God to watch over him, protect him and change his heart of stone to one of flesh… it’s never too late, and prayer isn’t the only thing left to do, it’s the first thing we ought to do. 

God’s speed my friend. C

PS. Forgive my absence, we have nbeen very busy… and GRANDBABIES!!

The ambush at Sam’s Place!

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I had this verse come across my feed today and I have really been thinking about it:

PROVERB 24:16 For a righteous person falls seven times and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of disaster.

A righteous man? Who is this righteous man? What makes him righteous? Who is this wicked man and what makes him wicked? 

I believe the mystery of this verse is revealed from within this verse, let’s look around and find out, the verse previous seems to be the contrasting verse and also appears to be the verse that sets the scene for verse 16

15: Do not lie in ambush, you wicked person, against the home of the righteous; Do not destroy his resting place;

16: For a righteous person falls seven times and rises again, But the wicked stumble in time of disaster.

The warning to a “malicious” person to not go against the “good” person, because the good guy won’t quit, he never gives up, he keeps going! But the bad person is happy with not getting up… Happy in the wreckage he has made of his life. 

The term “7 times” is used many times and it can be translated as “The righteous person may fall all his life, but he always gets back up”

The wicked man also stumbles but he is happy in this fallen condition and doesn’t bother to even try to fix his life again…. 

A modern “Sam’s Place” translation might sound like this: Even though the guys at Sam’s Place may fall a thousand times, they keep working on “Getting life back on track”, they never quit. But every so often a guy with a seared conscience will make it into Sam’s Place and that man will try to get every other man to fail… Our guys don’t quit that easy, they keep trying and finding new ways to get life back on track… 

The last few months were brutal, we had a wicked man like that. He worked overtime to make everyone fail. Although he got some guys to “fall” for a short time, they haven’t failed.  Sam’s Place worked extra hard and we finally succeeded at the cure. 

It can take about $5000.00 and three months of time to remedy this. It’s painful, makes me want to just QUIT, but Jess and I know God’s plan is greater. I am sharpening my vetting skills, becoming better at the process. Learning how to separate the tares from the wheat… (Matthew 13:24–30). 

It’s infuriating  to have to do “evictions” but it becomes part of the program. When it is necessary, it gets expensive and time consuming… When I take a chance, “give a guy a break” because I felt sorry for him and missed the fact he is just a  malicious man hiding behind a disability. 

In the end, God is always good and we know we serve the guys with struggles in life, it can and does get messy. 

One day I will write about this ordeal. How broken the system really is. How it protects a very wicked man that is destroying the lives of vulnerable adults. How he manipulated guys that are easily influenced. How I need to pay thousands of dollars to get my rights enforced. How he is “protected from me” while he steals, cheats and destroys the lives around him. How difficult it is to “kick a guy out” after he violates my rights. How the law enforcement agency won’t enforce the law because the county attorney won’t prosecute. How I am forced by the “law” to feed this man, provide for this man, cloth this man, care for this man, as he slowly and intentionally steals, curses me, and violates my rights. How I need to install furnaces, boilers and do service calls just to pay for this man to live at my expense. How my vacation was destroyed. How my wife cried. 

But today I just wanted to write about “NOT GIVING UP” . I don’t really think of myself as a righteous man but according to the Proverb I listed above. If resilience is the mark of a righteous person, then I am absolutely a righteous man. I am not giving up! We will continue to do good and help these men at Sam’s Place to get life back on track… 

Please consider helping us. If you are a Godly man that loves to mentor struggling men, if you are a prayer worrier that loves to spend time in your inner room, if you are rich beyond your wildest dreams, we covet your attention and consideration. 

With a spirit of service to the KING of KINGS, C.

but its legal, everyone is smoking it now

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Have you ever tried to help someone get on track and it turns into you doing all the work? Have you ever thought “If I can only get them to (make up your own personal goal and insert here), then they would surely want to continue to get life back on track!”

Perhaps you know a drunk? An addict? A worthless fella? A homeless mess?

Allow me to pause for a second, I just want to say:  I am not trying to cause your blood pressure to skyrocket. I am not insulting you for trying. I am not even saying it’s “not worth trying” to help another human… or that this has even the slightest thing to do with your specific situation. So before your fuse pops. Before you flip your lid. Before you think I need to be canceled. Hear me out… I’m not saying this is a “one size fits all” I’m not even saying this fits any other situation, I’m just asking you to stop for a minute and ask “Does Charlie have any validity? Does Charlie have anything worth reading about? Does Charlie just speak out of ignorance? YOU DECIDE!!

Back to that person that has a messed up life: Is he the reason? Almost every time it’s because they have made bad choices… perhaps those bad choices are stimulated or “first cause” from situations that are not in their control? Perhaps a marriage failed due to infidelity? A parent died? A child was killed? Or life was too much?? I am not talking about excuses to make bad choices, I am however talking about what we do with bad situations. 

The Choices We’ve Made. (Choose this day the god you shall serve)

But even so, they made a bad choice along the way… every death by overdose I have ever heard of started with a bad choice. Sure, we can find a situation that can be used to counter this… But the cold reality is this: I know a lot of addicts, drunks and folks that are dead because they made that choice to smoke weed, drink that drink and eventually, it got so bad that they died in a crash, overdosed, or used so long that their bodies couldn’t keep going. 

Persistent mental illness, substance use disorder… These are the new PC terms. So many kids are dead, and would not be dead if they had never smoked that first joint… THERE…. I SAID IT. It started with weed.

I ruined years of my life with drinking and smoking and drugs… I could have retired multiple times by now if I had never gone to that one party in 6th grade… I would have been sober that day, I would not have crashed my bicycle into the back of that parked car, I would not have been flirting with that girl. 

I have often thought about how my life would have been if the buddy I smoked my first joint with wasn’t dead in JR High, while he was stoned. 

I wonder about the few people we had “honored” at my high school reunion. 

Somedays I weep, because God preserved my life from the times I drove home and didn’t remember the trip… I remember crossing the river underneath camden bridge and the ice cracking, water coming up onto my shoes and somehow I survived. 

Do you think of the brilliant minds that are now entombed in a world of delusion from drugs? I know so many guys that don’t have control in life because of “Persistent Mental Illness”, but the root cause is doing drugs… AKA “Substance Use Disorder”. Or perhaps you also have the profound memory of the funeral of your 18 year old niece?  Do you think about this type of thing?

All because “The first time someone smoked the harmless devil’s lettuce, a simple joint, it’s legal so it’s not bad for you, weed” or maybe it was a wine cooler? A beer? I challenge you today to find one person who’s stuck in addiction, a drunk, a drugie or whatever term you prefer, just one, that doesn’t have a story that starts something like this : “I smoked weed/drank the first time ….”

Imagine a world where we could stop “the first time”…  But humans are sick, it’s called sin, and everyone has this sickness… We already have the cure! Why not start healing before “SUD”.

Imagine a world where your son or daughter, friend or cousin, stranger or neighbor didn’t smoke that joint or have that drink. Where he didn’t talk to that man on the bus, where he was NOT given that foil pack to “try” later. 

Imagine a world where anyone caught giving drugs to kids or vulnerable adults were actually arrested and charged! Imagine a world where political correctness didn’t rule the courts and feelings did not overwrite the laws on the books. Image a world that the deputy doesn’t say “We wont pursue criminal trespass because the county “prosecutor” won’t prosecute any trespass crimes”

Imagine a world that trusted God? God said “I created you”. 

Yes, the world is sin filled, all have sinned, but that’s not the end of the book. The rest of it is simple, God already has a way for you and everyone to find freedom from addiction… YES, FREEDOM! You don’t need to be enslaved to addiction, there is freedom. Just ask, be sincere, ask God today to set you free from the sin that traps your heart. 

You cant save that person in addiction, sometimes the best thing is to “not help”. Get out of the way and let God do his job. Enabling is actually the hardest form of addiction to “kick”. Enabling never saves, its always hurting the addict. Enabling is a form of addiction.

No prayer will save you, no mantra will save you, no doing good things will save you, in fact, the harder I have tried, the harder it gets… It’s called surrender, surrender to GOD. Only GOD can provide that freedom you need. 

Thanks for reading my blog today, C.